The Hunting Party Creator Explains That Big Shane Twist – So, That's NOT His Dad?
Plus, another secret bunker? Creator J.J. Bailey reveals the details of two huge surprises in The Hunting Party.
This story contains spoilers for The Hunting Party Season 1, Episode 6, "Arlo Brandt."
While "The Pit," The Hunting Party's top-secret serial killer holding facility, was destroyed and its prisoners freed, it turns out one of its former inmates kinda missed it...
In "Arlo Brandt," Special Agent Rebecca "Bex" Henderson (Melissa Roxburgh), CIA agent Jacob Hassani (Patrick Sabongui), and recent Pit prison guard Shane Florence (Josh McKenzie) are chasing a serial killer who was being treated with a technique focusing on material detachment therapy, which caused him to want to rid others of their issues with excess consumption.
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In our exclusive NBC Insider post-mortem, series creator J.J. Bailey explains the long-simmering storylines that were finally introduced in this episode, including a twist concerning Shane's mysterious visits to his" father" and the secret off-shoot to The Pit, known as Silo 12.
Arlo Brandt and the case of conspicuous consumption
When it's revealed that the serial killer of the week was being treated with "material detachment therapy," it certainly sounded like something straight from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or DSM). But, surprise! Bailey admitted it was a creation from their writers' room.
"That one started with one of our staff writers, Vinny Ferris, who's just an absolutely lovely human being. He's this incredibly kind guy who comes up with these really wild ideas," he said of Arlo Brandt's condition and treatment. "He actually pitched something that we thought was going to be our season finale. He wanted to do an episode where a killer was recreating The Pit. I loved the idea, and the concept of that was so fun."
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However, in terms of ambition, rebuilding The Pit seemed a bit too costly for an escapee, so the writers instead decided to focus on Brandt's rebuilding as a metaphor. Then they figured out why he might be pursuing such a specific reconstruction.
"I can't remember who in the room came up with it, but it was this idea of somebody returning to this state of nothingness, wanting for nothing, and wanting to spread that gospel, which got us down to consumerism and consumption," he said of Brandt's mission during his escape. "We didn't pull it from a psychology book. It's something that we came up [with] in the room and just sort of ran with it."
Wait, is Shane Florence a villain?
The end of the episode also paid off with a big reveal around Shane when the man he's been visiting at the assisted living is revealed to not be his father. The staff, naturally, confronts him.
Should we be worried about nice guy Shane now?
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"Shane is a character that is near and dear to my heart," Bailey said. "His storyline was one that we came up with very early in the show, and we're really excited about the back half of the season as we finally get to it. One of the things we realized was necessary [early on] was to give Bex and Odell's storyline the room it needed in the front half of the season. But also to leave Shane as the trusted partner who doesn't have ulterior motives... at first. We had to build it out for this to really work later in the season. And now that we're getting to it, it's so fun for me."
The Silo 12 reveal and what's to come
Another big revelation came in the form of the annexed secret area of The Pit known to only a chosen few: "Silo 12." In this episode, Bex and Hassani confront Odell about Silo 12 — and he's hesitant to share too much. However, Odell finally gives up some information by the episode's end.
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Bailey confirmed Silo 12 was a plot point they've been holding in their creative back pockets for a long time.
"We started talking about these tunnels underneath connected to other facilities, as we always knew some of these real missile silos are connected by tunnels to control centers and things. So, we knew there was the ability to expand into other spaces and see what they are," he explained. "In the show, when we actually get to Silo 12 and realize what was going on there, it blows it up in an interesting way. It was so fun to finally get there because we came up with that place, I believe, in the mini writers' room that we had before the writer's strike."
New episodes of The Hunting Party air on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC and stream next day on Peacock.
